Valli Rajah

Valli Rajah is a Professor of Criminal Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. Her academic affiliations include the Department of Criminal Justice and directorship roles in the Criminal Justice PhD program. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University, complemented by BA, MA, and PhD credentials in Criminal Justice from John Jay College.

Her research focuses on gender-based violence, unintended consequences of crime policies, and anti-racist criminology. Key contributions include studies on intimate partner violence resistance, juvenile reform temporal dynamics, and exoneree narratives. She has been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute on Minority Health, Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and AAUW.

Rajah received the 2021 Sarah Hall Award for feminist criminology contributions. Her teaching spans undergraduate and graduate levels, including courses on Race & Ethnic Relations, Research Methods, and Survey of Research Methods in Criminology. She actively engages in diversity initiatives and applied research evaluations in NYC.